When I was seventeen, living on my own after having been homeless, sex trafficked, and abandoned, I couldn’t imagine surviving into my late sixties and knowing the joy I feel today. I’m so happy I didn’t give up on myself so long ago.

Even while homeless, whether crawling on all fours lost in a bramble bush on a mountainside for hours or on the streets of San Francisco searching for a place to sleep, I always hoped for safety, for a way out of the mess I’d gotten myself into.

Then, living on my own in an apartment at age seventeen, eating powdered milk and oatmeal three times a day because I couldn’t afford groceries, I never considered suicide an option.

Music was my refuge

Flute playing saved me. The vestibule in my apartment building had terrific reverberation. I’d play there for hours, improvising, letting out pain, sorrow, and anguish. Music was my refuge.

Once I returned to high school as a junior, I made flute performance my career goal. I couldn’t read sheet music and learned how. I didn’t know what a scale was and learned all of them in the Circle of Fifths. Music gave me guidance, direction, something to strive for, to be good at. I worked hard and achieved accolades. But inside I was still suffering.

Only by facing gut-wrenching pain, by freefalling into that bottomless pit of despair did I move from surviving to thriving. I didn’t do it alone. I had a guide, a good therapist. And then I found another good therapist. I worked hard on my recovery for decades.

I vowed in the future to interview therapists

Finding effective practitioners took trial and error. After one horrible experience where the corrupt psychologist added insult to injury, and who ultimately had his license revoked, I vowed in the future to interview therapists. At this point, I was in my late twenties. One counselor made me feel like I was under a microscope and kept saying “fascinating, fascinating.” Though flattered, I knew that wasn’t what I needed. The other kept moving around so much in her seat I couldn’t concentrate and wanted her to just settle down.

Finally, I remembered the Adlerian dream psychologist who was a speaker at an evening workshop I attended. She asked for examples of recurring dreams. I shared a nightmare from my childhood that continued to baffle me. She gave me an analysis on the spot that made total sense, saying the balance of power in my life was all out of whack. Small things had power they shouldn’t have; big things had no power at all; the small thing was me wielding excessive authority, the big things were my parents showing no authority at all. As a child, my psyche visualized the terror of being in Toxic Abusive Relationships (TAR).

I stay current, present, and alive in the moment

It took years to clean out the basement of my emotional baggage, but finally every corner was whitewashed and empty. I was well on my way towards wholeness. Since then, I’ve had to go down into that basement and clean out the cobwebs, making sure nothing is accumulating down there. I stay current, present, and alive in the moment. I practice gratefulness and experience joy. I no longer obsess about whether people like me or think I’m weird. No. I love me now. I have found self-forgiveness and intimacy with my soul and my Higher Power.

Much of my sustained recovery is due to joining the S-Anon Twelve Step program for those affected by another person’s sex addiction. As a former trafficking and abuse victim, S-Anon has provided a safe place to feel difficult emotions in community with other victims of behavior caused by sexaholism. I’m not isolated anymore, don’t feel crazy like I used to. I have serenity and peace in my life daily. I love my world, my existence and know I’m not alone and that I have friends who understand me and accept me without judgement.

When I was in my twenties, I’d catch glimmers of hope. I might be staring at the toaster waiting for my breakfast to pop up when a feeling of joy would slide across my heart for a second then disappear, fleeting, but real. When I reported this to my therapist, she was delighted. “That’s progress.” I didn’t believe her. It was so brief, so momentary in a sea of depression. She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. In the future, those moments will last longer until one day, they’ll be your existence.”

She gave me hope

She gave me hope. That’s what I want to give you. This world, this universe is filled with love and compassion that resides in your heart and in the hearts of good people everywhere. In therapy, I cracked open my heart and let out all the black gunk. It was terrifying. Sometimes I hyperventilated, once I sat a long time in the waiting room after my session to get a grip before walking out to my car. It was all worth it, because only by accessing the darkness can you access the light, and believe me, there is so much light within you, so much love.

I wanted me—all of me—the light and the dark. Today, the darkness is a memory, like childbirth; a memory of agony, not the agony itself.

I am the victor, not the victim. I have conquered those deep, dark, scary feelings and memories. It wasn’t easy, and, like I say, I had help from good people with the patience and skill necessary to see me through. I have forgiven myself, and even forgiven those who hurt me.

I know that may sound crazy. You may be thinking never would I ever forgive that so-and-so. Believe me, it took time. But whether you forgive someone who hurt you is not as important as forgiving yourself. That’s where real healing begins–forgiving ourselves, discovering who we are, and recovering joy. The way you do that is slowly, one day, one breath at a time.

Polly Hansen’s unpublished memoir “A Minor, Unaccompanied: Memoir of a Teen Musician’s Odyssey,” won Memoir Magazine’s 2022 coming-of-age Memoir Prize for Books. Her work is published in Newsweek, The Sun and numerous other journals. She was a finalist in the 2023 Doris Betts Fiction Prize and lives in Asheville, NC with her husband and two black dogs often mistaken for small black bears on leashes. You can find her at pollyhansen.com and @9ofPentacles.

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Polly Hansen